


Isosceles Stance

by frackin_sweet



Category: Inception
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, M/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:43:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frackin_sweet/pseuds/frackin_sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Response to the <a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/"><b>inception_kink</b></a> prompt: <i>She’s my best friend’s girl. And she wants a threesome.</i>.  Prompt can be found <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/5987.html?thread=8829027#t8829027"> here </a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isosceles Stance

**Author's Note:**

> Betas: Many thanks to [](http://jehane-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**jehane_writes**](http://jehane-writes.livejournal.com/) (cheerleading and helping me make sense), [](http://malifique.livejournal.com/profile)[**malifique**](http://malifique.livejournal.com/) (rapping me on the knuckles for my Americanisms), and [](http://imlikat.livejournal.com/profile)[**imlikat**](http://imlikat.livejournal.com/) (helping my brain bring the porn since 2007).

University is for experimentation. Ariadne has friends that would attest to it; in lush, rambling stories about absinthe and the way limbs fit together. About abandon, about risk.

But she hasn't seen the need for it, herself. After working with Cobb's team, she's found the only amalgam in which she really blends. And the risks abound: pain, failure, limbo. It's heady enough to satisfy the most hedonistic adrenaline junkie. The first time she's critically injured in a mark's dream, a bullet to the neck that makes her clamp her hand over the carotid spurt and gasp at Arthur, "No! You _need_ me!", he just drops his gun and presses a hand on top of hers, and rushes her down the alley. In spite of the pain and gurgling inability to get her breath, they complete the job before she bleeds out.

She awakens with a start, but exhilaration quickly takes over. They’ve succeeded, because she hung on. But for some reason, what follows is a lecture from Arthur that amuses her, confuses her, and then angers her. Who the hell does he think he _is_ , anyhow?

She tasks Eames with the question over drinks later, and he smiles at her frustration. "Dunno, love. Wouldn't have taken you for one with a Daddy complex. At any rate, best to keep it in the bedroom, mm?" Eames signals for another round, as if he's not just said something totally patronizing.

Ariadne's face heats; she's still not used to the fast-acting alcohol in the expensive brands Eames insists upon. "You...it's not like that! He's totally professional!" Which makes it sound like _she_ isn't. "We have a working relationship, I'm an adult, I'm competent, and he has no right to treat me like that. I can handle myself."

Eames deflects her bluster with another glass. "Of course you can. But he does have the right, we all do. Protectiveness has naught to do with your age, gender, or experience." He waits, holding up his glass until she humors him, and clinks. "He'd do as much for me, and I for him, and you for him or me, or I for you, yes?"

Ariadne nods, and gets a little too drunk to think about it, Eames' omission of Cobb or Yusuf. Reflection comes after a few more jobs, when she realizes that the three of them, Arthur, Eames, and herself, are very much an accepted triad, a team within the team. And that seems to explain it.

That New Year's Eve, Arthur decides to repeat his request for a kiss. Nobody's watching, and they're not in the dream, although Ariadne finally has to admit to herself, days later and wrapped in a sheet in Arthur's apartment, that she's checked her bishop once or twice. Suddenly, even seamlessly, they're a sort of couple; the sort that can actually work together, go on holiday, and then separate for extended periods of time without undue strain. It's good, because she's got her degree to finish, back at university where she's never gotten around to any of that legendary collegiate experimentation.

*

 _Oh, now you've gone and done it,_ Eames thinks, watching Arthur and Ariadne argue over matching wine with food. They're in love, those two, tentative and delirious and still both brimming with professional competence. _It's going to be Dom and Mal all over again. Bugger me if I'm going to watch that._

But he does, oh yes, because he's never really been able to look away from Ariadne anyhow. Never bothered to hide it, even. Not when Arthur would give him warning looks or Ariadne would grab one of his fingers, bending the knuckle beyond comfort and commanding him to stop it with his pervy self, already. She tosses glossy hair, lips drawn in a moue of mock disapproval. She's luminous, and Arthur is lucky.

And Arthur, the bastard, he looks like he knows it. Eames can't help but notice when Arthur's perpetually-focused brow uncreases, when Ariadne whispers in his ear. The way he smiles at her, and doesn't even try to bring his features back into neutral alignment. The way Arthur's fingers twine a lock of her hair, or swipe across her lips, simultaneously efficient and tender. Arthur directs his laser-like focus on the same features that tend to draw Eames' gaze.

And sometimes, they catch Eames looking. Sharing, or trying to. He blows them a kiss, and turns away, to swallow the surprising pang that sticks in the back of his throat.

*

She hesitates. _Fuck_. Her finger on the trigger, and she can’t pull it, even as Eames writhes on the floor. _Him then me. Him then me._ her brain chants at her, and she knows it’s the solution, the end to his pain, the thwarting of their mark’s murderous subconscious, the end of the mission. But it’s her first time, and nothing could prepare her for this, killing another person and then herself. She bites her tongue for pain, for focus, and tears come. She’s seen Dom do it, seen Arthur do it. They laugh about it even, hours later.

“You owe me for this one,” she grates, and leans down, far enough that the barrel of her revolver touches Eames’ forehead and she doesn’t have to look. She tastes sticky blood and hot metal when she puts the barrel in her mouth.

She vomits the taste out of her mouth as she awakens.

Later, as she splashes cold water on her face in the tiny bathroom, Arthur approaches. He doesn’t touch her, he knows she’s fragile, and it makes her want to punch the mirror. “You okay?”

“Don’t tell me it gets easier. Do not tell me that.” She grimaces at her unbroken reflection, and at him behind her, looking at her.

“I won’t, because it doesn’t,” Arthur says, direct as ever. It’s almost comforting. He continues. “Unless he’s really pissed you off first. Then it’s a little easier.”

“Exactly. Should have touched you up. Remind me to cop a feel next time,” Eames appears in the doorway behind Arthur. “You’d have wasted me with a smile on your pretty face.”

It’s infuriating, both of them there, concerned and warm and so...damn reassuring. It’s not much of a stretch, when she lets herself be folded into Arthur’s arms, to twist her fingers in Eames’ shirt and pull him close as well.

*

It’s the closest they come to having an office party; an impromptu gathering at the villa in Cadiz- Fischer lets them crash there sometimes, caught up as he is in philanthropic pursuits. Arthur has been watching his other half learn the tango from the thorn in his side for the past hour. He finishes his drink. It’s high time he admits it, to himself, at least.

He’s jealous. He can’t tango - waltz, foxtrot, sure, but not those hip-sway dances. Eames, meanwhile, is very fluid. He molds himself to Ariadne as he guides her through the _paso basico_ , and her hesitation has long since melted away. She stares him in the eyes, haughty and fierce, until he theatrically hitches her skirt up her thigh and they both dissolve into giggles.

Then Eames tips her, making her arch against him, braced with his thigh between her legs, and she gets an upside-down glimpse of Arthur. He schools his face, or tries to, but it seems that his left eye twitches. Ariadne’s hand comes to rest on Eames’ chest as he rights her, and Arthur’s eye twitches harder.

Arthur turns and wrestles his countenance into a smile while he refills all of their glasses. “Don’t quit your day jobs, you two. That was a little sloppy,” he says, inwardly congratulating himself for keeping his tone light, and his smile in place as he hands them their glasses.

Eames, of course, is a dick. “You know I like it better sloppy. I can’t be the only one, can I?” His arm is still curled around Ariadne as he drinks, but her eyes on Arthur make him redirect. “Oh, come on, Arthur. Have a go?”

“Arthur can’t tango,” Ariadne supplies, and Arthur knows he has his next emotional motivation for having to kill one or both of them.

Eames shakes his head, hard and clumsy; the alcohol has apparently dampened all but his dancing grace. “I meant with me,” he clarifies, and slides an his other, drink-laden arm around Arthur. Liquid slops uncomfortably down the back of Arthur’s trousers, because Eames is handsy in spite of the glass. “Whoever said tango is the stronghold of machismo is a bloody wanker.”

It’s hard to stay annoyed with him. Arthur is a little bit drunk too, because the firm circle of Eames’ arm feels quite good, as good as Ariadne looks in her green dress, delicate strap sliding off one flushed shoulder. “Tango is a reflection of Argentine societal views on sexuality, I think...that’s the established description,” he says, a little unsteady. Why is he spouting pedantic claptrap about Latin dance?

“Ari, is he talking dirty to me?” Eames stage-whispers to her. “I can never be sure.”

Arthur half-expects Ariadne to defuse the moment, but something in the dancing and the flickering candlelight has ignited a predatory spark. She tilts her head away from her male companions, considering.

“No, he’s still deciding whether or not he needs to address the fact that he's feeling a little...territorial, right now,” she says.

“Well, tell him how offended you are by me, then! Here...slap my face for good measure.”

A look settles deeper into Ariadne's dark eyes, and something passes from her to Arthur, something that lifts the tiny hairs on the back of his neck. "I'm not sure it's _me_ he's feeling that way about," she whispers, moving against both of them.

Ariadne reaches to take hold of Arthur’s barely-loosened tie. “Arthur,” she breathes, and he can smell the layers of alcohol over her warm breath. “I think this is one thing that _does_ get easier...” the last words trail off as they’re whispered against Arthur’s lips.

The rush of Arthur's pulse isn't usually this loud in his own ears. The movement of Ariadne's lips and tongue make a nice counterpoint to his thudding heartbeat. And then he hears Eames make an appreciative sound. When Arthur winds an arm around Ariadne's waist, his hand skids across Eames, who of course is unfastened and unbuttoned to the point of his shirt practically falling off already. This is not a bad thing, however, much as Arthur might have made a comment about Eames' disheveledness, in any other situation.

Here, disheveledness is the goal. Between the two of them, they both support Ariadne so she can wind her legs around Arthur and kiss him properly; she thrusts both hands into his hair and grabs big handfuls, and pulls. Eames boosts her up so she's got a bit of height on both of them, and she plunders Arthur's mouth from this superior position. He gasps when she pulls off, her teeth dragging his lower lip. "Arthur," she says, and he's happy to notice that she can't seem to catch her breath either. "Remember how you told me, after that one time..."

Arthur immediately remembers; a successful job, dangers averted, and he'd been jubilant and never more in love with her than that moment. "Anything you want," he clarifies.

Ariadne hums in pleasure, and puts one foot back on the floor. She looks pointedly at Eames, who has a second of uncharacteristic "Me?" disbelief, before closing what remains of the gap between them. Someone's playlist is still coursing through the small speakers, but the music has slowed. It pools in the air like the dregs of wine in a glass. The three of them, joined in a drunkenly-arranged triangle, sway together. Completing the circuit.

"I think I'm calling in some favors, then," Ariadne says, and their heads all lean together for a moment. They understand her intention, even if neither Arthur nor Eames is positive which favors she means. Eames backs up against the edge of the table, the bottle tips warningly, but doesn’t fall as he pulls Ariadne against himself. She reaches behind and experimentally ruffles his hair, which sticks up adroitly rather than dissolving into messy waves, like Arthur's has, from her ministrations. Arthur carefully pulls a strap down, and Eames gives him an eyebrow. When Arthur simply returns it, Eames puts his mouth to the pale skin of her shoulder, and they both feel her answering shiver as Eames' mouth moves to the base of her neck. Arthur sees his tongue and teeth leaving wet imprints on her, and feels the hot rush of earlier.

There's jealousy, yes. Of both of them. But instead of letting it congeal into hurt or resentment, Arthur focuses on the again-loud rush of his blood, the scent of Ariadne's skin mixed with whatever posh cologne Eames is wearing; the sight of her leaning back against Eames, and reaching out for Arthur.

 _Anything you want_. Apparently it applies to both of them, because when Eames raises his head to look at Arthur again, Ariadne pulls him forward by his shirt, and Eames helps bridge the gap with a surprisingly gentle hand on Arthur's face.

And the kiss makes him groan. This time it's Ariadne making little sounds as she works to unbutton Arthur's shirt, pulling the tails out of his trousers. For a moment Arthur forgets to worry about crushing her small frame between the two of them as Eames kisses him hungrily, callused fingers stroking his jaw.

She's always been able to handle being the one between them, though. Ariadne is hanging on to their belts as she sidles aside, and backs across the room, pulling, beckoning. They have to disengage to comply with her demand, and after several steps they come to a stop with the backs of her legs against the big bed in the master suite.

Arthur has one more coherent thought. When did he stop paying attention to logistics and start letting Ariadne handle it? She's damn good at it. It's worth revisiting.

*

Eames is so happy to be in this situation he could wriggle like a puppy. But they're still figuring out how they all fit together on the bed, and his wriggling might throw off Arthur's groove, or something, and that's the last thing in hell he wants to do right now. Because they are hip deep in each other; Ari's giving Arthur head while Eames hold him steady. Her swollen lips travel easily from the crown of Arthur's dick, to Eames wet fingers around the base. And her eyes, those eyes, lidded and knowing, watching them while she does it, _fuck_. Arthur is leaning against Eames, hot bare skin to hot bare skin, and close as they've been, it's never been like this. Eames can feel the tension in Arthur still, but it’s seeping away.

Ariadne catches his eyes again, and Eames moves before he's even sure what she's asking. He replaces her between Arthur's splayed legs, and before Arthur can react with more than an opening of his eyes, Eames goes all the way down on him, forcing it till his throat threatens to protest. Ariadne doesn't miss a beat, she pushes Arthur backwards on the bed and climbs atop him, kissing his mouth, his neck, his chest. She's small enough that her pert bottom doesn't even get in Eames' way, although he can't resist a slick dip into her with his fingers. The sound she makes when he does it makes Arthur's cock surge in Eames' mouth, and it gives him an idea, even though he can't pull away yet. Arthur feels good, _tastes_ good, and Eames isn't going to squander the experience.

Eames keeps going, long slow sucks, and Arthur's quads are tensing under his fingers, and Ari's wet cunt is moving closer to his face, so on a whim, he switches off, and slides onto the bed beside Arthur, shifting her over to straddle his face. "Didn't mean to neglect you, darling," is all he has time to say before she queens him like she's been waiting to do it all night. He sucks on the hard little bud of her sex and fingers her easily. The scent of her is intoxicating, better than liquor or drugs, pheromones and lust, and hang it all if he doesn't forget technique for awhile and just enjoys it while she rides his face.

Not that this distracts him from when Arthur...that filthy bugger, Eames would _not_ have thought he had it in him...settles in place and takes Eames' cock in hand. And of course, this is Arthur, he's probably researched it...he knows exactly how to proceed, sliding the fleshy sheath of Eames' foreskin up and down, and then following the movement with his mouth. He explores the exposed head with his tongue sometimes, and Eames is glad for the distraction of Ariadne, so that he doesn't start offering up suggestions. Arthur might not take so kindly to _that_.

"Wha...oh, love, come back, I'm not done with you..." Eames has the monologue ready, here's what I'll do, you dirty girl, who knows who he's even really saying it to, anymore, when he feels a hot, wet clench, entirely different from Arthur's exacting mouth, take his cock.

"Oh, fuck _me_ ," is what comes out of his mouth. It's request, demand, and gob-smacked interjection all at once.

*

Ariadne isn't going to say no to Arthur. She knows when he's deadly serious, and right now he wants her to get well and properly fucked. His hands grasp her hips, and settle her down onto Eames, and when he bottoms out inside her she practically squeals, because _oh, god, so full_ , she can barely stand it. And then Arthur reaches around, parting her folds with his fingers, helping hold her up, moving her, a slow grind against Eames that has him biting his lip already. He's a mess, sprawled across the pillows, sweaty, pupils shot, scratch-and-teeth-marks scattered across his inked skin, and Ariadne can't even tell who put what where. But that _is_ his hard, thick shaft thrusting inside her, and his strong hands on her thighs, her hips, sliding up to completely cover her breasts, and of course he can't shut up then...

"Never thought I'd have such a thing for small tits," he says, and she'd smack him but it comes across as the best term of endearment ever, as he takes them in hand and kneads, rolling her nipples between his fingers. She curses him and calls him by his first name, and this seems to breach a further level of intimacy, and he pulls her down to kiss him, hard, while he fucks her, _hard_. It reaches the point where she's not in control of it anymore, not in the least, and the shudder starts deep in her ass, and spreads outward, little earthquakes. Her cunt spasms around him and he eggs her on with tender-voiced obscenities, until she slaps her hand flat on his chest, and arches back. Against Arthur, and she tells them both she's coming. Like they didn't know.

And Arthur, normally such a proponent of timing and execution, pushes her off, before the aftershocks even slow, and plunges into her from behind. Ariadne gasps, and Eames immediately reaches up to brace her, in spite of the fact that he's been replaced. It lets her stretch, and splay her legs further on the bed, so that her sex is still pressed on top of him, his hardness a demanding rub against her as Arthur fucks her from behind. "Give it to her good. Make her spend again, come on..." Eames’ hoarse voice encourages.

And the build happens again, deep inside. It's faster, and sharper, and this time she's the one who's cursing. But being caught between these two men allows her to let go, to relax, to let them push and pull and hold her as they bring her off a second time.

She’s still panting and shaking when she feels Eames thrust hard and insistent against her, and wetness spurts against her stomach as he comes. Arthur speeds up, fingers a bruising grip on her flanks. She looks down, in a shaking daze, and sees both sets of hands encompassing her, and sees Arthur’s knuckles turn white against Eames' hands as he lets go deep inside her. She drops her forehead to Eames' shoulder, and breathes.

When Arthur finally withdraws, he moves over to the side and eases her back against him. She squirms so that she can hook one thigh over Eames, heedless of the mess left on both of them. She wonders who is going to be the first one to speak.

It's Eames, taking inventory of things. He tastes some of the wet residue on his belly. "Hmm. The two of you make a rather heady cocktail."

She feels Arthur exhale against her hair, a short chuff. He's laughing. "Well. I think most of yours is on my leg, if you want some of that, too."

Eames just grins, and fondles Ariadne's hip. "Anytime you want to call in a favor, darlings. Anytime."

 _...as much for me, and I for him, and you for him or me, or I for you, yes?_

Ariadne smiles to herself, shared between them. She knows what it means to be a lover, and she’s more than just half of a whole.

 _Yes_.

 _\--End_   



End file.
